[Cryptography] nuclear arming codes

[John Gilmore]

> The most detailed and authoritative (public) version is probably
>   http://tomnichols.net/blog/2013/12/20/update-were-u-s-nuclear-codes-set-to-zero-bruce-blair-responds/

By the way, this topic IS relevant to cryptography.  Gustavus Simmons,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gustavus_Simmons , cryptographer at
Sandia Labs and co-founder of the IACR, was involved in the creation
of the Permissive Action Links (PALs) that prevent the bombs from
arming unless they receive the right launch code.

In fact there's an allegation that public-key crypto was invented 
for the PALs, before the Stanford crowd did it:

  http://csl.illinois.edu/news/nuclear-weapons-permissive-action-links-and-history-public-key-cryptography

	John

PS: Gus Simmons was also key to making the test-ban treaties work, by
providing cryptographic protocols that allowed sensors to be placed in
each others' countries, that would report back only what the treaty
allowed them to report, with no covert channels for additional
information, and verification that the sensor packages had not been
tampered with.